Editor’s note: USC Leonard Davis School student Aani Nagaiah is a sophomore majoring in Human Development and Aging and minoring in News Media and Society. As a high school senior, she co-founded Our Ode to You, a 501(c)(3) bringing live music and arts programming to memory care communities via teen volunteers. She is pursuing a career in healthcare with a commitment to research, policy and the power of a well-told story. She recently won the Schwarzenegger Institute first place prize at the 2026 USC Undergraduate Writers’ Conference for the below essay, “What Endures,” which describes the experience that inspired the creation of Our Ode to You.
“What Endures”
“I played clarinet too.”
Don said it before I finished the first phrase.
The room had been quiet in the way memory care rooms often are. Televisions hum. Chairs line the walls. People exist beside one another but not always with one another. Staff had told me Don rarely initiated conversation. His dementia had progressed quickly. Some days he did not recognize his own daughter.
But when I lifted my flute and began to play, he leaned forward. His eyes sharpened. He interrupted the music.
“I played clarinet too.”
Later, I learned something that reframed the entire moment. Don was a Carnegie Hall alumnus. He had performed on one of the most prestigious stages in the world. He had stood under chandeliers and applause and history.
Now he was sitting in a softly lit common room, needing help remembering what he ate that morning.
There is a kind of erasure that happens quietly in this country. We celebrate achievement at its peak and distance ourselves from it once it ages. We care about pop stars when they had hits. We care about Olympians when they won that gold. We speak about legacy in abstract terms, yet we do not build systems that sustain the people who created it. In a culture obsessed with youth and output, aging becomes a loss of visibility long before it becomes a medical diagnosis.
That moment with Don changed me.
I had grown up treating music as achievement. Auditions. Competitions. Resume lines. But when a Carnegie Hall musician looked at me not as a performer but as a peer, I understood that talent is not meant to orbit the self. It is meant to serve.
In that moment, purpose arrived as responsibility.
As I began returning to memory care facilities, I started asking questions beyond my own experience. The United States population over age 65 is projected to nearly double by 2060, reaching about 95 million people. At the same time, studies consistently link social isolation in older adults to higher risks of dementia, cardiovascular disease, and premature death. Facilities face staffing shortages. Budgets tighten. Programming is often reduced to what is considered essential.
Creative engagement is rarely labeled essential.
But it should be.
Research shows that music can activate autobiographical memory, reduce agitation in dementia patients, and stimulate neural pathways that remain accessible even when language declines. Art therapy is associated with improved mood and social interaction in long-term care settings. Yet when funding conversations happen, creative programs are often the first to disappear.
As someone studying health and aging, I could not ignore that contradiction.
So I decided not to perform at residents, but to build with them.
I co-founded Our Ode To You, a teen led nonprofit that brings live music and hands on art workshops into memory care facilities at no cost. What began with one flute performance grew into structured intergenerational sessions where residents paint, dance, sing, and tell stories alongside teen volunteers.
We have now impacted hundreds of seniors across multiple facilities. Residents who rarely speak begin humming lyrics. Staff report decreased agitation during sessions. Families write to say they saw recognition return, even if only for a few minutes. Teen volunteers leave with a reframed understanding of aging and dignity, and even a little bit of advice.
It is reciprocity.
Right now, sustainability is treated as an environmental term. It is attached to carbon, water, land, and energy. Those conversations are urgent. But rarely do we ask whether our social systems are built to endure. The United States is aging rapidly, yet we have not built consistent emotional infrastructure to match that demographic shift. We fund buildings. We regulate medication. But we underfund connection. A society that cannot sustain dignity across generations is not sustainable at all.
There is a broader cultural tendency to soften the truth about aging. We romanticize grandparents in commercials while underfunding the facilities that house them. We praise resilience while ignoring loneliness. As Baldwin once argued, America has a remarkable ability to alchemize bitter truths into something more palatable. Aging and isolation are among those truths.
Don’s life contained brilliance. But brilliance alone does not guarantee remembrance.
Our Ode To You was designed to endure. We eliminate cost so facilities are never forced to choose between creative engagement and core care. We train teen chapter leaders not only to replicate the model, but to adapt it thoughtfully within their own communities, ensuring both expansion and integrity. We return consistently because repetition is not optional in dementia care. Familiarity builds recognition. Recognition anchors identity. Yet no session is identical. Each workshop responds to the residents in the room, allowing creativity to remain dynamic while the structure remains reliable.
We are building toward scale with intention. The goal is not occasional outreach, but accessible infrastructure. Every teen who wants to contribute their creative talent should have a clear pathway into a memory care facility. Every facility should have access to sustained intergenerational programming without fearing that funding cycles will cut it short. No resident who once performed, built, taught, or led should disappear into institutional silence.
Don never remembered my name.
But I remember the authority in his voice when he told me to keep practicing. For a moment, he was not a patient. He was a musician correcting another musician. That exchange was structural. It exposed how much brilliance sits quietly in rooms we overlook.
I found purpose the day I understood that usefulness has nothing to do with being impressive. It has everything to do with refusing to let one’s dignity disappear.
Carnegie Hall felt far from that common room. But perhaps the more important stage is the one where someone who once performed before thousands is seen, heard, and treated as whole again.
That is the work I chose to build.
And it is only beginning.
